Maccy Advanced Preferences: The Settings Most People Never Touch
Last updated October 21, 2026 · About 9 minutes · Items marked should be checked against your installed Maccy version before publishing.
Quick answer
Maccy App‘s advanced preferences are the settings that decide what gets stored, what gets ignored, how search behaves, and how pasting works. Most are in Settings (the Maccy Mac menu bar icon, then Settings, or ⌘ , while Maccy Clipboard is focused), and a few are only reachable through defaults write in Terminal. Tuning storage limits, the Ignore tab, and search mode removes most day-to-day friction.
Why bother with the advanced settings?
Out of the box, Maccy is a good clipboard manager. After a few weeks you notice the friction: the history fills with junk, search returns surprising matches, a screenshot you copied lingers longer than you’d like, or a copied token sits in history when you’d rather it didn’t.
All of those are preference problems, not app problems. Maccy is free, open source, and local-first, so every setting is a trade-off you make yourself. Nothing leaves your Mac, which makes the Ignore and Storage settings the real privacy controls.
Setting names vary slightly between releases. Where I’m unsure of an exact label or default, I’ve said so.
Storage: what Maccy keeps, and for how long
The Storage tab controls what Maccy captures and how much of it persists.
| Setting | What it does | Practical advice |
|---|---|---|
| Save: Files / Images / Text | Toggles which pasteboard content types are recorded. | If you never reuse copied images, turn Images off. Maccy stays lighter and screenshots stop cluttering history. |
| History size | Maximum number of items retained. The default is 200 and the UI cap is 999 . | 200 covers most people. Raise it only if you routinely search for things copied weeks ago. |
| Sort by | Last copy time, first copy time, or number of copies. | Last copy time matches how people think. “Number of copies” suits repeated snippets such as emails and addresses. |
Duplicates. Copying the same text twice doesn’t create two entries. Maccy moves the existing one to the top and increments its copy count, which is why the “number of copies” sort works.
Pinned items are not subject to the size limit. If something should never fall off the end, pin it (⌥ P on a highlighted item) instead of raising the history size.
Search modes: fuzzy, exact, regex, and mixed
Maccy’s search mode determines how the type-to-filter box matches your query. This is one of the most underrated preferences.
| Mode | Behavior | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Exact | Plain substring match. | Predictable results; short histories. |
| Fuzzy | Tolerates gaps and approximate matches, so “mccy” can still find “Maccy”. | Large histories where you remember fragments. |
| Regex | Treats your query as a regular expression. | Finding patterns like ^https?:// or \d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}. |
| Mixed | Combines the approaches . | A forgiving default if you don’t want to decide. |
Fuzzy search is helpful but can return surprising matches in a long history. If results feel noisy, switch to Exact. If you’re technical, Regex turns the search box into a filter for things like URLs only, or only lines starting with a particular prefix.
Paste behavior and formatting
Two preferences change what happens when you pick an item:
- Paste automatically: selecting an item pastes it straight into the frontmost app. Without it, Maccy only places the item on the clipboard and you press ⌘ V yourself. Automatic pasting needs Accessibility permission under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility. If auto-paste silently does nothing, this permission is the first thing to check, especially after a macOS upgrade or app reinstall.
- Paste without formatting: strips rich text styling so pasted content takes on the destination’s style. Useful for web text going into documents.
You can invert the default per paste. Holding ⌥ while choosing an item pastes it the opposite way (for example, plain when the default is rich) .
The Ignore tab: your real privacy controls
Maccy can skip recording clipboard content from specific apps, of specific pasteboard types, or matching a regular expression. Because everything is stored locally, this tab is about limiting what sits in history on your own machine.
Ignored applications
Add apps whose copies should never be recorded: a banking app, a password manager, a remote desktop client. Maccy identifies sources by app bundle identifier .
Ignored pasteboard types
Well-behaved apps mark sensitive copies with community-standard pasteboard types from nspasteboard.org, such as “concealed” for passwords and “transient” for short-lived data. Maccy respects these by default, which is why most password manager copies never appear in history. This only works when the source app sets the markers. If an app doesn’t, Maccy can’t know the copy was sensitive. Verify with your own password manager rather than assuming.
Ignore by regex
Use this to drop copies matching a pattern. A few examples:
| Goal | Pattern |
|---|---|
| Skip anything that looks like a 6-digit one-time code | ^\d{6}$ |
| Skip strings starting with a common API key prefix | ^sk-[A-Za-z0-9]{20,} |
| Skip 16-digit card-like numbers | ^\d{4}[ -]?\d{4}[ -]?\d{4}[ -]?\d{4}$ |
Test each pattern by copying a harmless sample and checking whether it appears in history. Regexes are only as good as the patterns you think of.
Clearing history
You can clear history from the menu (⌥ ⌘ ⌫ clears all ). Depending on your version there are options to clear on quit and to clear the system clipboard along with history .
Appearance and popup position
The Appearance tab affects speed of use more than looks:
- Popup at: near the cursor, at the menu bar icon, or in the window center . Cursor placement keeps your eyes where you’re working.
- Pin to: top or bottom of the list, which determines where pinned items sit.
- Image height and preview delay: control thumbnail size and how long you hover before a full preview appears. A short delay is handy if you copy images often.
- Title length: how much of a long copied string shows. Shorter titles make more items fit on screen.
- Show/hide elements: menu bar icon, search field, footer, and similar chrome. Hiding the menu bar icon gives a cleaner bar, but you’ll rely on the global shortcut (default ⇧ ⌘ C) to open Maccy. Change it in General if it conflicts with another app.
Hidden settings via Terminal
Maccy stores preferences in the org.p0deje.Maccy defaults domain. Some options historically have no UI and are set with defaults write. The pattern is:
defaults write org.p0deje.Maccy <key> <value>Quit and reopen Maccy afterward. Key names and availability change between releases, so list your current values before editing anything:
defaults read org.p0deje.MaccyKeys that have existed in various versions include ones for popup position, image height, preview delay, and menu bar icon visibility . Check the project’s official documentation for the authoritative list. Don’t copy keys from old blog posts. If a key doesn’t exist in your version, nothing breaks, it simply has no effect.
Three recommended setups
| Profile | Storage | Search | Ignore | Paste |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Privacy-first | Text only; history size ~100 | Exact | Password manager, banking apps, OTP and key regexes | Manual paste |
| Developer | Text and files; size ~300 | Regex | Regex for secrets and tokens | Auto-paste, plain text by default |
| Designer / writer | Text and images; size 200 | Fuzzy | Minimal | Auto-paste, rich text by default |
These are starting points from reasoned trade-offs, not benchmarks. Adjust after a week of real use.
Pitfalls and honest limitations
- Auto-paste stops working after a macOS update or reinstall. Re-grant Accessibility permission.
- Ignore lists don’t protect everything. They only catch what an app declares or what your patterns match. Treat them as risk reduction, not a guarantee.
- Bigger history costs memory and noise, especially with images enabled.
- Preferences can differ between App Store, Homebrew, and direct-download builds. If your Settings window doesn’t match this article, check your version first .
- Shortcut conflicts. If ⇧ ⌘ C does nothing, another app may have claimed it. Rebind it in General.
FAQ
Where are Maccy’s advanced preferences?
Open Maccy’s menu, choose Settings, and browse the tabs (General, Storage, Appearance, Pins, Ignore, and any Advanced section in your version). A few additional options are only available through defaults write org.p0deje.Maccy in Terminal.
Does Maccy save passwords copied from a password manager?
Usually not. Maccy ignores clipboard items marked as concealed or transient, which most major password managers set. Confirm this with your own password manager and add it to the ignored applications list for extra safety.
How do I change Maccy’s search mode?
Open Settings and look under General for the search option, then choose Exact, Fuzzy, Regex, or Mixed .
Why isn’t Maccy pasting automatically?
Auto-paste requires Accessibility permission. Enable Maccy under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, then relaunch it.
Is Maccy’s clipboard history stored in the cloud?
No. Maccy is local-first and keeps history on your Mac, so what stays in it is governed by the preferences above.
